*DNFed at 41%

I just cannot get into this one… I was sold this based on the idea that it’s a fantasy retelling of the Biblical story of Esther, but nothing about this was reminiscent of Esther’s character. Will pass this on to a friend in hopes that her and her sisters enjoy it more than I did :’(

This entire book, Anne and Gilbert both felt so uncharacteristic. Especially Anne, which just absolutely broke my heart. I really liked Leslie’s character and her place in the story, but literally everything else was either lackluster or incredibly frustrating (i.e. the way that Anne literally doesn’t have the same personality that she’s had for the four books of the series ??). I can’t believe I’m giving an Anne book 3 stars, but I genuinely dreaded picking this book up every night and I have to reflect that…

In theory, I loved so so so much about this book. In actuality, literally everything fell flat in every single aspect.

First of all, I knew from two pages into Flynn and Kyra meeting each other that I wouldn’t be on board for their romance. Nothing against the writing of it, I just personally don’t enjoy the kind of enemies to lovers that has become so uber popular nowadays. You know, the kind wherein one of them goes from their heart beating fast when they look at their “enemy” on one page to wanting to physically (and usually violently) hurt them in some way on the next page. Absolutely no fault of the author here, I just hate this take on the trope in every instance that I experience it.

Secondly (most importantly,) the IDEAS of the group of the Fools, the monarchical kingdom and the usurping that is happening, the MAGIC absolutely pulled me in, in the beginning. But, herein lies my main issue with this book. That is, the absolute lack of explanations going on throughout it. It feels as though I only know the absolute surface level knowledge on everything (e.g. the place(country? City? Land?) where it’s set, the king/monarchy situation, the magic). I mean, nothing is ever is explained beyond the generic description of what happened and no further information or context being given. I don’t think it’s a crazy take to want a lot of exposition and explanation in a book, especially a fantasy book. But maybe I’m the crazy one and this is just what fantasy(/romantasy) is now…

Also, for those wondering about the content levels. There is a handful of minor swears (imo) in the form of “hell” and “damn.” In terms of the romance, there is a lot of flirting and innuendos thrown around for the majority of the book until they finally kiss (and basically make out or make eyes at each other for the remainder of the book.) Also a surprising amount of Flynn being shirtless and Kyra checking him out, which just constantly felt weird tbh….

So overall, I really had a lot of hope for this book, but that obviously fell really flat. I hope others have a great time with this book. I will immediately be passing this off to a friend that tends to like modern fantasy/romantasy books that maybe will be able to read this one without the critical lens that I inevitably have when reading. If I didn’t read everything with critical thinking skills, I think this could’ve been a fun turn-your-brain-off sort of read. But, I will never be a part of that club I fear.

This book has one of the most intriguing, unique ideas behind it that I have seen in a long while. There was just so much that didn’t live up to that level of interesting within the actual text of the book. The length of this book simply felt inadequate for this grand and impressive idea of memory erasure and restoration. Also, the amount of language really pulled me out of the book at times and frustrated my reading experience. Overall, it was an okay book, but if it had been a couple hundred pages longer and dealt more thoroughly with the idea of memory erasure as a subject, I would have /really/ enjoyed this I think.

The language in question for those wanting to know what to expect:

5 “hell” 1 “Jesus” 7 “sht”/“shtty” 7 “Oh my God”/“oh God”/“God” 1 “godd*mn” 1 “damn” 1 “pissed”